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As a senior manager it’s often difficult to reflect important strategic leadership skills. Those skills that reflect the strategic management and business planning that brings about success. That enable businesses to overcome challenges and grow profitably. The skills that gain the respect of teams, directors and external colleagues. To be a stand out leader.

From coaching at this level of management we understand how much effort goes into developing these management and leadership skills. But often time is spent on following lengthy and unresearched plans. And not everyone who operates and has to follow those business plans understands the best practice to achieve their goals. That’s why it’s been important to us to establish the best practice to deliver a format of learning that helps everyone create and execute strategic plans.

Our Strategic Leadership Acceleration course. A course to learn about strategy and attain a level 7 award whilst you work and manage your business. This management and leadership course is a faster focused programme. A programme taking the occupational accredited level 7 standards and making it easier to follow. But it’s only for the busy manager committed to learn and apply our methods in their business during the 6-months on the programme. Then apply as an accredited strategic manager and leader.

The Course:

The Strategic Leadership Acceleration Programme has been developed for the ilm level 7 NVQ Diploma Strategic Management & Leadership , a postgraduate management course. A course which is delivered by Gill Bailey, our expert Coach and Assessor, online for an ilm centre. The Strategic Leadership Acceleration programme is designed to grow business profits, shape the culture, develop the recruitment and retention, the quality and improvement and marketing. With easy training resources and regular coaching to learn strategic tools faster.

Our successful level 7 candidates tell us about their increased confidence, and ability to deliver strategic plans to their directors and colleagues. And their career advancement to senior strategic leaders with their business success. It you don’t believe us, you can ask them or get a case study!

With Gill Bailey, our experienced business and leadership coach, you learn to create and execute a strategic business plan for your area of responsibility. Together we match your goals for your business and personal development to the optional units of this award.

As an established manager or aspiring strategic leader you will:

meet the award criteria from work planned and delivered in your workplace.

meet your coach for 2 x month online coaching sessions, recorded for you to review, and

meet your coach monthly for an Ask the Expert call for your one to one support

get assessment by reflecting in a short digital recorded professional discussions

work in your business to complete this course in 6 months

We do not require you to write assignments or hold a previous management qualification. We just need you to commit to attend regular coaching sessions, to follow our guidance and support, and to deliver your planned work. In return, we will help you manage your development time, your challenges and provide easy access to tried and tested learning resources. With all the coaching sessions pre-scheduled and recorded to follow up on the learning at any time.

What is the Cost

The cost includes full registration to ILM and your e-portfolio of tried and tested theory, analysis tools and strategic planning templates, plus your coaching videos and 1:1 sessions. For the Strategic Leadership Acceleration course you will pay

JUST £2,295 OR the option of 4 X MONTHLY PAYMENTS of £580 .

Which you can pay by direct debit, credit card and Paypal payment

(See our terms of payment)

And so what do you need to do to get more information on this course offer….

For course details on this level 7 strategic leadership acceleration course to deliver strategies in your business contact us

Grow your strategic leadership skills and your business faster

It’s summer, it’s hot, and a good time to create you a hot offer to join our Strategic Leadership Acceleration course. A course to learn about strategy and attain a level 7 award whilst you work and manage your business. This management and leadership course is a faster programme and we are offering an amazing summer saving.

The Course:

The Strategic Leadership Acceleration Programme has been developed for the ilm level 7 NVQ Diploma Strategic Management & Leadership , a postgraduate management course. A course which is delivered by Gill Bailey, our expert Coach and Assessor, online for an ilm centre with Direct Claims. The Strategic Leadership Acceleration programme is designed to grow business profits, shape the culture, develop the recruitment and retention, the quality and improvement and marketing. With easy training resources and regular coaching to learn strategic tools faster.

Our successful level 7 candidates tell us about their increased confidence, and ability to deliver strategic plans to their directors and colleagues. And their career advancement to senior strategic leaders with their business success. It you don’t believe us, you can ask them or get a case study!

With Gill Bailey, our experienced business and leadership coach, you learn to create and execute a strategic business plan for your area of responsibility. Together we match your goals for your business and personal development to the optional units of this award.

As an established manager or aspiring strategic leader you will:

meet the award criteria from work planned and delivered in your workplace.

meet your coach for 2 x month online coaching sessions, recorded for you to review, and

meet your coach monthly for an Ask the Expert call for your one to one support

work in your business to complete this course in 6 months

We do not require you to write assignments or hold a previous management qualification. We just need you to commit to attend regular coaching sessions, to follow our guidance and support, and to deliver your planned work. In return, we will help you manage your development time, your challenges and provide easy access to tried and tested learning resources. With all the coaching sessions pre-scheduled and recorded to follow up on the learning at any time.

What is the Cost

The cost includes an amazing hot summer saving of £1,000 on our popular 1:1 coached level 7 programme. For the Strategic Leadership Acceleration course you will pay

how a business strategy provides an opportunity to grow your business,

the key factors in creating a strategy, and

how to drive your business strategy for change and growth

So if you’re a manager and want to lead change or growth for your business to produce the results you know that you can but need to devise a strategy then join us. It’s FREE and it’s only 60 minutes via our online coaching expert session and so why wouldn’t you!

Is it time to grow your business and your leadership team?

Is it that time of year to put a ‘March’ on your business growth? Do you need to review and make changes in your business but also need managers skilled to lead and take those plans forward. Leaders who can create and execute the strategic plans to give the business a new future.

Here at LinQs we coach business owners and managers to grow their business. As our leadership development training is also work based our level 7 Strategic Management and Leadership programme sits very nicely alongside the business growth coaching. Because this programme includes one to one skills coaching and the assessment process to measure the manager’s competency in developing and executing the strategic business plan. As we match the key objectives of the strategic business plan to the optional units of the award we therefore coach the manager to understand and deliver new skills areas. So if the plan requires for example the need to shape the culture, manage governance areas and a marketing strategy we coach the manager one to one to deliver those strategies. The advantage to both the business and the manager is that whilst the manager is working in the business they are working on the business and to attain a postgraduate qualification. A qualification to add confidence and strength to your leadership team.

Total value of the offer is £500+ which is only available for the 1st 10 registrations by 21 March 18

So how does the March offer work?

LinQs level 7 Strategic Leadership programme is all coached one to one online over 10 monthly sessions, with easy access to your learning plans, strategic analysis and plans templates. In March 2018 you would pay a one off registration fee including full assessment costs of £995, then pay £190 per month coaching session from your 2nd session. This special offer gives you 10 sessions for the price of 9 sessions, so £190 free. Plus the one to one online coaching session for either a director or manager, valued at £297, and a copy of “How to Build the Passion and the Profits For Your Business” that retails at £14.99. Giving a special total value of £501.99.

Why are we doing this. Well we’ve accessed commercial funding to finance leadership development. The timing is perfect as we want to make sure that after the Easter period we have a group of committed senior managers ready to grow their business. What’s more that if managers register now and as previous candidates have achieved in 9 months, they could still be qualified in 2018, but certainly no later than March 2019.

We’ve been informed of a new phase of Lancashire funding for business growth support for local, mainly business to business customer focused, small to medium sized businesses.

This is £5,000 of ERDF funding which will end next year. So you can be looking to develop your strategy, improvement processes, HR, competitive advantage, leadership, marketing and sales, new products or resource effectiveness with the support of professional consultancy.

The Funding

Phase 1 is FREE and delivered by the Funder to provide £2,000 worth of business analysis.

Phase 2 enables the business to access up to of 50% funding for a consultancy business growth project to the value of £6,000.

Funding for Strategic planning, Leadership and Marketing

LinQs have been working with funded business growth projects since we established our consultancy in 2001. We pride ourselves in working with the latest easy to use resources to plan and enable SME business owners and their managers to execute profit making strategies. Our expertise is in small to medium sized business development developing business owners and their leadership teams to undertake strategic planning, leadership, marketing, project planning and map their processes and quality systems to establish priorities in resource management.

Funding For Senior Leadership Development

LinQs coach senior managers, one to one, to an accredited postgraduate development standard covering over 18 management areas. This latest funding ceiling enables the business to have up to 2 senior managers coached at 50% of our cost. The senior managers on our programme execute a strategic business plan for their area of responsibility, reflecting competence matched to an international management development standard. This has proven an asset to the business leadership team, the CV, and business profiles when tendering for new contracts.

Access the funding

This ERDF Lancashire funding is subject to the organisation and agreed programme meeting the eligibility criteria of the funding terms. So we work closely with the funders management team and the business. It’s also important that businesses move quickly to deliver their project using this ERDF funding which will end next year.

If you are interested in growing your business just contact us for a free chat and we can look at prospective business projects with you. With our long experience in business growth development, we will be able to guide you on the benefits to your business.

Just launched in the range of Lancashire business support from Boost Lancashire is ‘ Unleash your Growth Potential’ a group mentoring programme to ‘take your business to the next level’

Gill Bailey of LinQs is working with Orvia partners of Boost Lancashire to deliver this fully funded group mentoring programme. Gill will share 24 years in business development and expertise in strategic planning, leadership development and marketing with Lancashire small business owners aiming to grow their business over the next 3 years.

Gill says ‘As a mentor I will provide a soundboard for business owners to consider their options in building their business. I’ll also be offering tried and tested information to support them to focus on achieving their goal. But importantly working with a small group of business owners with years of business experience and growth ambitions will encourage new ideas. Its a great opportunity to support small businesses in Lancashire to increase employment opportunities and their turnover.’

The ‘Unleash your Growth Potential’ is an ERDF funded programme with funding partners Lancashire Partnerships and Lancashire County Council and is being promoted by Boost Lancashire and the team at Orvia and LinQs. To learn more contact us

As training budgets are cut, more and more organisations look for quality distance learning to complement their own training delivery.

CAS Training Ltd have just informed us of over 20 distance learning courses available for staff in the care sector across England and Scotland. A range of courses all fully funded using Adult Education Funding budget with no cost to the employer or learner. So with no fee outlay and a flexible delivery model reducing disruption to service operations, care staff achieve accredited qualifications which also sit well with the CQC.

Courses now available are

Firstly, these 2 new valuable healthcare courses have been added to this offer

NCFE certificate in Understanding Challenging Behaviour level 2

NCFE certificate in Customer Service for Health and Social care level 2

With these other courses available

Autism Awareness

Care Planning

Common Health Conditions

Dementia Care (WDF funding eligible)

Diabetes Awareness

Dignity and Safeguarding

End of Life Care

Infection Control

Mental Health Problems

Nutrition and Health

Safe Handling of Medicines

Working with People with Learning Disabilities (WDF funding eligible)

Working with People with Mental Health Needs

Business Administration

Customer Service

Equality and Diversity

Information, Advice or Guidance

Team Leading

Easy registration and further funding

For easy registration, CAS Training are now offering postal enrolments to minimise disruption to service delivery even further, as no face to face induction is needed. Furthermore, they will is also help eligible employers to access the Workforce Development Funding from Skills for Care when learners complete their relevant courses.

We hope this information is useful to managers in health and social care looking to benefit their training budget and staff development. Priority is being given to sites referring 8 or more learners.

For a full list of courses and a booking form for interested learners, please direct your enquiries to Janet Jarvis, Employer Engagement Co-ordinator, CAS Training Ltd, by email to enquiries@castraining.co.uk or phone 01909 518615

Join a strategic leadership programme to gain those much needed skills to grow your business, work with your busy working life and business cashflow.

Developing the strategic leaders of tomorrow is a key service from LinQs and so we’ve made some important changes to our ilm level 7 NVQ Diploma in Strategic Management & Leadership to offer greater flexibility, easier access and easy payment terms to open the programme to more managers across the UK.

The first changeis that our leadership development coaching will be available online monthly to our candidates. We know that busy managers struggle to schedule in training, and so with the success of our online coaching with candidates, all candidates who register for this course will be able to book to attend and/or access recordings of the group coaching sessions. The group coaching sessions will focus on the award unit theory and its application in the strategic leadership role, using our resources and with discussion from group members. So now a missed appointment with a coach won’t delay the leadership development of the candidate and we can offer regular joining dates.

All our one to one coaching sessions will also be held online as it has proved successful with managers who often need to book appointments with their coach or assessor outside of their day working hours. So its still face to face meetings but using the latest easy to access technology to discuss the development of the candidates e-portfolio and record a professional discussion to meet the unit criteria . Working with this NVQ award we focus on the candidate delivering work based evidence of analysis and plans both valuable to developing the leader and their business.

And the final change is the way candidates pay for this award. As we work with a lot of small businesses and even the larger businesses where cashflow can be an issue we are introducing a registration fee followed by 10 monthly payments. Its very much a pay as you learn scheme as we work with candidates to complete their award 12 months after starting the programme.

So its just 3 important changes at LinQs to offer greater flexibility to help more UK managers to become strategic leaders. These changes alongside the quality of the tried and tested resources, coaching and support from our professional team keeps LinQs at the forefront of delivering this post graduate level 7 NVQ award. If you’d like to learn more about this programme please contact us.

How can Manchester businesses access funded support to grow their business?

A fully funded Executive Leadership coaching programme for the business owner

LinQs since June 2016 have been delivering the latest government support available to the small to medium sized business owners in Greater Manchester. The support provides a a fully funded Executive Leadership Programme with 18 hours free bespoke coaching for business owners. Its a great opportunity to continue the valuable work which has enabled business owners and their leadership teams to work on their business and improve their profits as you can see in our success stories for our work with clients on a recent business support funded initiative.

What makes coaching business owners a success?

With entrepreneurs and business owners of small businesses recognised as the driving force behind successful businesses, it has been proved that committing the time to work on the business with an outcomes focused coaching programme increases their business profits and growth prospects.

By listening and coaching the owner of the business to plan their vision for the future growth into a written strategic plan with an action plan to deliver key projects drives that vision forward. To design and deliver the key projects any business needs a strong leadership team and facilitating the key management involvement in the planning process is valuable to the strategic leadership. Through open dialogue across the leadership team concerns and obstacles can be explored and identified by the coach. When additional resources are required within the plans then access to further support is quickly identified with the coach with links to support to enable the plan to progress. Both the coach and their programme advisors have access to a wide range of professional support and contacts. For example, finance, IT and processes often need exploring and the coach will work through this with the business owners. In addition, in monitoring the plans with the leadership team delivering the projects shares the owners workload and deliver the key drivers of the strategic plan. Identifying key problems and keeping the future growth plan on track.

The Greater Manchester Programme

This programme is specific to Greater Manchester postcodes and offers the fully funded Executive Leadership Programme providing eligible small business owners in Greater Manchester 18 hours of leadership development coaching from experienced business growth and leadership coaches. The programme is delivered in the business or as a group at a local venue over a series of 3 to 6 hour coaching sessions. The Business Growth Hub for Greater Manchester is leading the funding project and working with experienced partners to deliver the programme until March 2018. As mentioned, LinQs is approved to deliver the coaching but as with all government projects, funding is limited and a range of company criteria has to be met to for businesses to qualify for this programme. The coaching partners work closely with business owners and the Business Growth Hub to identify and approve qualifying companies. All this can be achieved within days, dependant upon diaries for meetings, and to enable the coaching programme to begin without delay.

Gill Bailey of LinQs has worked as a Leadership and Business Growth Coach successfully delivering plans with clients since 2011 and as an Associate for Winning Pitch a major partner in the delivery of this programme for the Business Growth Hub. Gill is already working with businesses on the programme due to complete in January 2017 and will be working with businesses for the funding in 2017. For a confidential discussion on this and LinQs current funded support opportunities you can contact Gill here.